


The Bull Pup

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Male Friendship, Post-His Last Vow, The Bull Pup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 08:51:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4429085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a friendship story, set after such-ever time as Mary and the baby are "lost" in canon. No idea when that will be, and this story does not attempt to fix that point.</p><p>It is a story of friendship, and of mourning, and of how the current canon could squeeze in the bull pup that Watson mentions in the very first Holmes story. </p><p>I hope you like it. You'd have to squint pretty hard to get Johnlock out of it, as I'm really not a Johnlock writer. But maybe if you squint REALLY hard....</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bull Pup

The case, Sherlock thought, had been worth the effort just for the intricacy of the various covers and feints. What had first looked like a simple gang murder had turned into something more complicated, when it turned out the victim had been smuggling dogs out of various illegal activities, rather than in. Whippets had been stolen from “owners” who’d falsified their registrations, who’d run them in covert races, who’d “trained” them using methods straight out of the dark ages. Then there had been the puppies spirited away from owners aiming them for the fight pit. Sherlock had tracked dog after dog to rescue organization after rescue, looking for connections, trying to sort out ties. He’d slunk like a whipped cur to gambling events that left even him feeling unclean—and Sherlock didn’t usually waste energy on sentiment when it came to cases.

He looked down at the young dog sitting in the wooden packing crate hidden with two dozen others inside a vast metal shipping container. The dog looked back, panting in the swampy, dog-scented heat of the space. He was no breed in particular, at least by modern standards. By the standards of two centuries previous he might have been a bull dog. His build hovered between that of a modern pit-bull and a modern bulldog, with elements of boxer and mastiff thrown in. He’d been intended to fight an actual bull, in a hidden arena in a barn in Kent, not far outside London.

Sherlock squatted on his heels, coat sweeping the grubby floor. He risked slipping a hand into the crate, offering it to the adolescent animal. He frowned when it cringed back from him, growling and whining in one unsettling sound.

“Shhhh, shhhh, boy,” he murmured, thinking of all the times Redbeard had surged forward, licking his fingers and wagging his entire body. “Shhhh. It’s all right.”

Feet approached, and he looked up to find Lestrade striding down the center line of the shipping container.

“RSPCA’s on the way,” he said, grimly. “Poor beasts. Most of them are unadoptable, even after the whole issue of being evidence is dealt with. Trained to attack.”

Sherlock considered the gawky, half-grown pup. “He’s young to have much training,” he said, tentatively.

Lestrade stood over them, looking down at both man and dog. He considered, frowning. “Ah, aye. But he’s not free of it.” He looked at the animal still cringing from Sherlock, growling with valor but no confidence. “Poor lad….”

Sherlock scowled. “The pups—they’ll be taken care of, won’t they?”

“Yeah.”

“And the adults?”

“Assessed. If they can be homed, they will.”

Neither spoke of what might happen to those who could not be safely homed.

“How many more are there like this?” Sherlock asked. “Half-grown. Half-trained?”

Lestrade shrugged. “No idea. Not many.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, then boldly reached in and scooped the pup into his arms, tucking it in a single smooth motion under the lapel of his coat. “One less, then,” he said, meeting Lestrade’s eyes in a hard challenge.

Lestrade’s brows rose. “Oh, aye?” He considered. After all, they had sufficient evidence. One pup less would do no harm to their case…. “What are you going to do with him?” he asked, then.

“Take him home,” Sherlock said. Then, more quietly—almost under his breath—he said, “To John.”

Lestrade’s face transformed, sobering as he considered. Warily, he said, “Does he like dogs, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you?”

Sherlock nodded, a short, almost unwilling admission.

“Tell him it’s for you, then,” Lestrade said, firmly. “Tell him the truth—it broke your heart, lad. He’ll do it for you, even when he wouldn’t for him. And…it may be the best thing you could do for either of them.”

Sherlock stood. His body seemed to curl around the shivering, quivering body of the pup no less than his Belfast did. He lowered his head over the lump hidden in his coat, and he crooned a deep, soft baritone croon. Only when the dog settled did he risk meeting Lestrade’s eyes. “Do you think so?” he asked. “John…he’s bleeding to death.” For Sherlock that was a masterpiece of metaphoric language, quite unlike his usual literal choices. But it approached a literal truth… “Ever since Mary and the baby, he’s dying.”

Lestrade’s eyes went distant and he cleared his throat. “Yeah. Well. It can take a man that way, Sherlock. John’s lost too much, too often. Give him time.” Then he grinned. “And ask him to help you with that pup. Not for him, for you both. He’ll do it for the two of you. But don’t tell him it’s for him. He’d reject it faster than Donovan leaving a room if she spots you in it.”

Sherlock gave a mocking grin, but nodded. “You’ll cover for me?”

Lestrade made wide, innocent eyes. “Pup? Bull pup? What pup is that?”

Sherlock nodded gratitude and loped off, dog still wrapped in the curve of his coat.

His shirt was soaked by a scared dog’s submissive pee during the cab drive home. He’d have to send everything, including the Belstaff, for dry cleaning. And he was met by Mrs. Hudson as he came in. Her eagle eyes spotted the lump, and her blood-hound nose detected the urine odor before he could even set foot on the stair.

“Sherlock!” She scowled. “No pets! You know that!”

Sherlock gave her his very, very best pleading scamp look and peeled back the lapel of the coat, showing the bandit-patched face of the pup. “He was intended for the bull pit, Mrs. Hudson. The bull pit.”

Her mouth opened to argue, even as her eyes melted. “Sherlock….”

He leaned closer, then. “I was going to ask John to help me with him,” he whispered. His gaze expressed every unvoiced hope in that statement.

Her own eyes flashed in understanding. She risked a single finger, stroking down the white streak to the mottled black and pink nose, watching the dog shiver at her touch. She sighed, then smiled. “But you’re responsible for damage done,” she scolded.

“Of course,” he assured her, knowing—as she did—that the promise was exactly as meaningful as all his other many assurances. He was her boy, and he got away with hell. They both knew it. They both cherished it…

He climbed the stair, then, and went into the flat.

John was there, as he’d been for months, now…staunch, unwilling to break, unable to function properly. Ever since Mary and the baby had died, John had stumbled on—too strong to fail, too stricken to do more than cope. Often he was too tired and depressed to go out with Sherlock, even when his practice allowed him the freedom. Today, though, he had been in the surgery, dealing with patients.

He looked worn. He was growing old. He dressed well, for a particular variety of classic style—very British, very wooly, but natty in his sleek trousers and handsome jumpers and cardigan vests. He sat in his chair, frowning over a medical journal, with a too-large tumbler of scotch in his hand. He barely noticed Sherlock’s arrival.

“John?”

The older man looked up. “Oi, Sherlock! What do you have there?”

Sherlock unwrapped the dog—stocky, leggy, big-pawed, shivering. “He was intended for the bull pit,” he said, softly. “I couldn’t send him to the RSPCA…”

John made a dubious sound. “Sherlock—what are you going to do with a dog? In a London flat?”

Sherlock shrugged and met his best friend’s eyes. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I love dogs. I thought…maybe you could help?” And, for good measure, because he was a manipulative son of a bitch when necessity called for it—and even when it didn’t—he added, “Please? For me?”

John hesitated, frowning, mouth turning down in skeptical dismay. Then the pup whined in terror, and he sighed, rising and setting the scotch aside. “Come along, then,” he said, in good-natured resignation. “We’ll set him up a box in the kitchen. But if he cries all night, you’re dealing with him.”

“Of course, John,” Sherlock said, and trailed behind the shorter man, smiling to himself. It didn’t take the moment when he transferred the dog to John’s capable hands to know the obvious: John was a doctor and a caretaker, and he’d been given something to heal and love.

“What shall we call him?” Sherlock asked.

“Your dog,” John chuckled, even as he cradled the animal to his solid chest. “What do you want to call him?”

“Sir Francis Drake,” Sherlock said, smiling at the sight. “He was a privateer. But we can call him Frank, for short.” Then he went to get the pup a can of beef stew, and the rest of the night was spent with the bull pup.


End file.
